Two months after the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history, the House on Wednesday passed legislation that would allow people to use permits for carrying concealed handguns across state lines while also boosting the background check system.

Despite bipartisan support for enhancing background checks for gun purchases, the bill passed along party lines, 231-198, due to Democratic opposition to the concealed-carry reciprocity measure.

Six Democrats voted with Republicans to approve for the package. Fourteen Republicans voted "no."

The gun policy measures were originally two separate bills. But House GOP leaders opted to combine them so that lawmakers only had to cast one vote.

Attaching the concealed-carry reciprocity measure puts the bipartisan measure to beef up background checks in jeopardy in the Senate.

The legislation as passed by the House faces an uncertain future in the upper chamber, where Democrats are sure to block the concealed-carry measure, but a bipartisan coalition has enough votes to break a filibuster on enhancing background checks.

Under the House legislation, people with permits for carrying concealed handguns could do so in any state that allows concealed weapons.

People could only use their concealed-carry permits in other states that allow the practice if they are carrying a valid government-issued photo ID and are lawfully licensed to possess a concealed handgun. They would still have to adhere to established state and local laws.

Concealed-carry reciprocity is a top legislative priority for the National Rifle Association, which has resisted proposals to restrict access to guns in response to mass shootings.

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the author of the concealed-carry bill, compared the concealed-carry reciprocity measure to how driver’s licenses and marriage licenses are recognized across states.

He gave an example of a single mother in south Philadelphia who had twice been mugged and purchased a handgun to protect herself. But she traveled to New Jersey, which didn’t recognize her Pennsylvania concealed-carry permit.

"If I get married in North Carolina but I move to Arizona, I’m not a single man again. They recognize that marriage," Hudson said during House floor debate. "The concealed-carry permit should be recognized the same way."

Gun reform groups lobbied against the concealed-carry measure. Mark Kelly, the co-founder of a group named after his wife, ex-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), said that the policy doesn’t work if people aren’t properly trained.

Kelly recalled how a well-intentioned man with a concealed gun almost shot one of the people responsible for wrestling the shooter who nearly killed Giffords in a 2011 shooting to the ground.

“The situation that played out in the Safeway parking lot that day shows the potential for tragedy and bloodshed when untrained people carrying loaded guns react to a crisis. Even with the best intentions, an armed person without the extensive firearms training that is required to respond under pressure in a crisis will risk making the situation worse, not better,” Kelly wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.

States have varying requirements for carrying concealed weapons, like gun safety training, age limits, and prohibitions on individuals known to have abusive pasts.

The package also included a bill from Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) that would ensure authorities report criminal history records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) and penalize agencies that don’t report to the FBI.

Democrats supported the background check measure but balked at including the concealed-carry reciprocity.

“Unfortunately, the dangers posed by the concealed carry reciprocity portion of the bill greatly outweigh the benefits of the NICS improvements,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.), the acting ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

The shooter responsible for the Nov. 5 massacre at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, was prohibited from buying or possessing a gun due to a domestic violence conviction while serving in the Air Force. But the Air Force failed to enter the criminal record into the federal database used for gun background checks.

Another provision in the bill is in direct response to the Oct. 1 shooting in Las Vegas, which killed nearly 60 people and injured more than 500 others.

Law enforcement authorities found a dozen devices known as bump stocks, which are used to make weapons fire more rapidly, in the Las Vegas shooter’s hotel room.

The measure would require the Justice Department to report to Congress on the number of times a bump stock has been used in a crime. It’s far less stringent than bipartisan bills introduced in Congress since the Las Vegas shooting to prohibit the manufacture, sale and use of the devices.

But ahead of Wednesday’s vote, the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) announced on Tuesday that it is considering a possible ban on certain bump stocks.

Lawmakers had been pushing for the Trump administration to clarify whether bump stocks violate the ban on fully automatic weapons manufactured after 1986.

“The regulatory clarification we begin today will help us to continue to protect the American people by carrying out the laws duly enacted by our representatives in Congress,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement.

There's even more to this. The reciprocity bill was tied to the gun control bill because the dems knew the control bill would not pass on it's own. There is fear the reciprocity bill will be lost in the senate shuffle and the only thing coming out of it will be the control bill. That would make defeating the final bill very difficult, as so many republicans have already agreed to it, (as attached the the reciprocity). Were I in a position to rely on the reciprocity bill for my carry freedoms, I would not plan on any interstate trips, just yet. There are enough senate republicans, who are against the reciprocity, or for the control, to severely damage or destroy any hopes of the combined bill passing.

Personally I don't want a background check on ammo or a mag capacity here in the Show Me State. I don't want to deal with on roster/off roster bullcrap either.

How can that happen, if I'm reading this right it won't effect anything in any home state except to force them to accept your conceal carry permit. Right now Illinois does not recognize any other states permits. If this passes it will force them to allow you to carry with your home permit. Yes, you will be responsible for knowing and following the laws of the state you're visiting but that should be the extent of it.

How can that happen, if I'm reading this right it won't effect anything in any home state except to force them to accept your conceal carry permit. Right now Illinois does not recognize any other states permits. If this passes it will force them to allow you to carry with your home permit. Yes, you will be responsible for knowing and following the laws of the state you're visiting but that should be the extent of it.

If that is the case and our own states laws don't change then I'm all for it, but remember that it will take 8 Democrats in the Senate to go against their fellow members to get to the magic number of 60 yes votes. The GOP has 52 Senators and can't lose one vote from their members if this has a chance to pass and become the law of the land.

ALERT: Feinstein/Schumer sponsored gun legislation that amends the “Brady bill” will be added to Concealed Carry Reciprocity bill (HR 38) in the House this week.

As Chairman of the Second Amendment Caucus, I’m blowing the whistle on the swamp. Last week, Republicans in the House fast tracked through committee HR 4477, a gun bill titled “fix-NICS.” The Senate version of this bill is cosponsored by Senator Dianne Feintstein and Senator Chuck Schumer and it will send $625 million over 5 years to states to expand the national background check database. The bill will also advance former President Obama’s agenda of pressuring every branch of the administration (such as the Veteran’s Administration) to submit thousands of more names to the NICS background check database to deny gun purchases. The House bill is identical in every way to the Senate bill except the House bill will also commission a study on bump-stocks.

What you don’t know, and what virtually no one in Washington wants you to know, is that House leadership plans to merge the fix-NICS bill with popular Concealed Carry Reciprocity legislation, HR 38, and pass both of them with a single vote. Folks, this is how the swamp works. House leadership expects constituents to call their representatives demanding a vote on the reciprocity bill, when in fact the only vote will be on the two combined bills.

How fast did Fix-NICS, HR 4477, move through the Judiciary Committee? This bill broke the previous records for fast track legislation. It was voted out of committee within hours of being introduced in the House. Check the dates on this link: https://www.congress.gov/…/115th-con...bill/4477/text . That means the text of the bill wasn’t even discoverable by the public on congress.gov until after the bill passed out of committee! The text was however available over in the Senate where you will find Senator Diane Feinstein and Senator Chuck Schumer are cosponsors. https://www.congress.gov/…/115t…/sen...135/cosponsors

If that’s not odd enough, consider this: the fix-NICS bill was introduced in the House by a Democrat two weeks ago. https://www.congress.gov/…/115th-con...bill/4434/text . But, in a very unusual move, the bill was re-introduced verbatim by a Republican two weeks later, with language added to it to commission a bump-stock study. Six Republicans in Judiciary Committee weren’t persuaded by the switcheroo, and voted No. However, because every Democrat voted yes and some Republicans voted yes at the urging of the Chairman, the bill made it out of committee. The deed will be complete this week when the bill is quietly added to the Reciprocity bill, HR 38, and passed without the knowledge of those who would oppose the legislation if they knew what was in it.

To recap, what are some clues that you should be concerned with the fix-NICS bill?

(1) The first sentence after the title of the bill reads “Section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (34 U.S.C. 40901) is amended…”
(2) Senators Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer are cosponsors in the Senate.
(3) It’s being rammed through, without a hearing, in a very nontransparent process, and it will be passed by attaching it to the popular concealed carry reciprocity bill which already has enough votes to pass on its own.
(4) It spends over half a billion dollars to collect more names to include in a list of people who will never be allowed to own a firearm.
(5) It compels administrative agencies, not just courts, to adjudicate your second amendment rights.

In my opinion, #5 is the biggest problem. The bill encourages administrative agencies, not the courts, to submit more names to a national database that will determine whether you can or can’t obtain a firearm. When President Obama couldn’t get Congress to pass gun control, he implemented a strategy of compelling, through administrative rules, the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration to submit lists of veterans and seniors, many of whom never had a day in court, to be included in the NICS database of people prohibited from owning a firearm. Only a state court, a federal (article III) court, or a military court, should ever be able to suspend your rights for any significant period of time.

Does the NICS background check system have problems? Yes, it results in tens of thousands of unjustified denials of gun purchases every year. But like many bills in Congress, the fix-NICS doesn’t live up to its name – it will likely do the opposite. It throws millions of dollars at a faulty program and it will result in more law-abiding citizens being deprived of their right to keep and bear arms.

If we continue to give the executive branch more money and encouragement to add names to the list of people prohibited from buying a firearm (without a day in court) and if the gun banners achieve their goal of universal background checks, one day, a single person elected to the office of President will be able to achieve universal gun prohibition.

House leadership should immediately de-couple the fix-NICS legislation from the concealed carry reciprocity legislation. People hate it when Washington combines bills like our leadership plans to do this week.

A few have speculated that the House is combining the bills to ensure reciprocity will pass in the Senate. I have some news for them: Senators Feinstein and Schumer aren’t going to vote for reciprocity even if it contains the fix-NICS legislation they support for expanding the background check database. If someone is naďve enough to think that’s going to work, and they’re willing to accept fix-NICS to get reciprocity, then they should ask the Senate to go first with the combined bill.

Here’s a dangerous scenario that’s more likely to play out: The House uses the popularity of reciprocity (HR 38) to sneak fix-NICS through, while the Senate passes fix-NICS only. The Senate and the House meet at conference with their respective bills, with the result being fix-NICS emerges from conference without reciprocity. Fix-NICS comes back to the House and passes because all of the Democrats will vote for it (as they just did in Judiciary Committee) and many Republicans will vote for it. Because Republicans already voted for it once as part of the reciprocity deal that never came to pass, they won’t have a solid footing for opposing fix-NICS as a standalone bill. Then we’ll end up with fix-NICS, which is basically an expansion of the Brady Bill, without reciprocity.

If our House leadership insists on bringing the flawed fix-NICS bill to the floor, they shouldn’t play games. We should vote separately on HR 38, the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Bill, and HR 4477, the fix-NICS bill. And we should be given enough time to amend the fix-NICS bill, because it needs to be fixed, if not axed.
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